Equal (Voting) Consideration

As the board mentioned on the editorial page today, Ohio doesn’t treat all voters the same. Depending on where you live, your polling place may close promptly 5 p.m., or stay open in the evenings and on weekends. More specifically, if you live in a county likely to favor President Obama, you’ll have to get to the polls before the end of the traditional work day; if you live in a county likely to swing Republican, you can take your time.

These disparities are so obviously unjust, so transparently intended to give the G.O.P. an edge, that the Republican secretary of state, Jon Husted, may actually try to fix the problem. Granted, he played a big role in creating the problem. As this morning’s editorial explained, Ohio’s county election boards are evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. In left-leaning areas, “Republicans have voted against the extended hours, and Mr. Husted has broken the tie in their favor.”
At first Mr. Husted was complacent, insisting he wanted to let Ohio’s 88 election boards set their own rules. “It’s my critics who have been inconsistent,” he said. “One moment they’re for local control. The next they’re for state control, depending on the outcome they’d like to achieve.”

Now he’s coming around. On Tuesday he told The Cincinnati Enquirer that “he is moving toward a statewide order.” On CNN Wednesday morning he said he hoped to “quell” the “controversy by moving to establish uniform hours in every county across the state so we can get back to focusing on the candidates.” He also said “we are trying to make sure that everybody feels like that are being treated fairly in every county.”

He hasn’t indicated when he might establish uniform hours, or how long polling stations will stay open under a uniform standard.

5:23 p.m. | Updated On Wednesday afternoon, Jon Husted, the Ohio Secretary of State, announced that all Ohio counties would follow a uniform early-voting policy. The policy would extend early-voting hours to 7 p.m. on weekdays during the last two weeks before the election, though all early voting is banned during the final three days of the campaign.